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Now that BC has loaded up on outfield depth, I can easily see a deal that would acquire a SP in the off-season. Hamels? Not signing Lester would make sense in the end if he could pull that off. Use Lester to acquire ML ready talent, sign Castillo and trade depth for a high quality SP. I think BC knows what he's doing.

Jeez, I would rather have taken that money and given it to Lester. I don't know if he's worth this because I never really heard his name before a month ago, which is something I don't like. You can say the same about Puig, but he was 20 and signed for a lot less. Hes the same age as Abreu, everyone knew Abreu was a huge talent for years. The Cuban huge success stories are Chapman (hyped), Puig (unknown but very young), and Abreu (Cubas biggest star). Cespedes has been mediocre at the plate the last two seasons after his rookie year. This feels like they realize they missed the boat on three very good Cuban players, so now they went all in on the next guy up for grabs.

I hope this doesn't mean some stupid offseason trade for Hamels is actually a consideration.

It's not my money, but every dollar the Red Sox just spent on Castillo is a dollar that cannot be spent elsewhere.

Exactly right. The whole "it's not your money" argument rings hollow when you consider trying to build a roster within the luxury tax (which the Sox have always attempted to do, albeit okay with stepping over the line if it meant a chance to win it all). Every dollar spent is a dollar not available to be allocated elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Redsox07Champs

i think thats an awesome contract, to be honest. It's not really a risk when your getting a guy for just over 10 mil a year.

Would you hand JBJ a $72.5M/7yr deal? If not then you acknowledge there is a risk with such a move.

While the success rates of Cuban defectors has been very good the last few years we've also seen fairly well-known Cuban talent defecting. They were more well established commodities. Castillo has gotten some press this year but not much before that. That leads into the comparison to JBJ. The Cuban leagues equivalents are generally somewhere in the minor leagues and generally below AAA. JBJ was a college baseball WS star and very successful at that level -- more so than Castillo.